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What happens when oceans no longer protect nations, and war can reach any city from the sky?
Bert Smallways repairs bicycles in Bun Hill and dreams of little beyond his own small world. Then a runaway balloon carries him into the secret plans of great powers. Cheerful, talkative and utterly unprepared, he finds himself aboard the German airship Vaterland, far from everything he knows.
In The War in the Air, H. G. Wells turns an ordinary man's misadventure into a warning about progress without wisdom. Inventors race to conquer flight while nations prepare to use it against each other. As war spreads, Bert wants only to get home, but the world around him is changing beyond anyone's control.
What you’ll discover
- An unlikely traveller Follow a bicycle mender whose accidental journey carries him far beyond his familiar streets.
- War above the clouds Encounter vast air fleets and cities suddenly exposed to attack from a new direction.
- Comedy with a dark edge Find sharp social comedy in the gap between grand ambitions and ordinary human understanding.
- The cost of progress Explore what happens when powerful machines develop faster than the wisdom needed to use them.
- A reason to return Share Bert's longing for home and for Edna, the woman whose memory draws him back.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you like adventure with a sharp comic voice, early science fiction, and big ideas about war told through one very human little man.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Progress crowds into ordinary lives
- Flight becomes a dangerous secret
- An accident carries Bert toward war
- Mistaken identity puts Bert aboard
- Bombing strips battle of its glamour
- Destruction cannot make a city obey
- Air power offers no lasting victory
- A connected world still acts divided
Who’s who
- Bert SmallwaysA cheeky young bicycle mechanic from Bun Hill who wants easy money and a good time, and is carried across the world against his will.
- Tom SmallwaysBert's older brother, a greengrocer and gardener who is uneasy about every new invention that crowds into his quiet life.
- Jessica SmallwaysTom's practical wife, who runs the shop, scolds both brothers and keeps a firm sense of limits.
- GrubbBert's partner in the bicycle shop, a shrewd, theatrical young man who dreams of a better business and a seaside singing act.
- Edna BunthorneA young woman working in Clapham whom Bert particularly likes and takes on a cycling holiday into Kent.
- Alfred ButteridgeA loud, vain inventor who flies a wasplike machine and guards its secret while demanding sympathy for his personal troubles.
- Prince Karl AlbertThe proud, romantic German commander who leads the first great air fleet toward America, seeking glory and a world empire.
- Lieutenant KurtA friendly young German officer with an English mother, who looks after Bert and slowly learns what war really costs.
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The War in the Air
by H. G. Wells · 1908
A bicycle mechanic from Bun Hill drifts off in a runaway balloon and lands inside a German war fleet.
Medium level5–10 hours to read20 languages
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“Indeed, I think that The War in the Air is the greatest of Mr Wells' achievements in fantasy that has a deeper purpose than mere amusement.”
In short
Tom Smallways sits on a garden fence in Bun Hill, watching balloons swell above the gasworks, and says that progress just keeps going. You would hardly think it could, he adds.
The War in the Air at a glance
- Reading time
- About 6 h 30 min5 h 10 min fast, 7 h 45 min slow
- Length
- 92,600 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1908by H. G. Wells
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Progress crowds in on the Smallways family
Wells opens in Bun Hill, a Kentish village that London has swallowed. Tom Smallways is a greengrocer who loves his garden, and he watches the world change faster than he can follow. His elderly father, a retired coachman, remembers a cricket field where the gasworks now stand.
Tom's shop sinks lower as the street is raised, and foreign fruit crowds his window. Each Saturday the Aero Club's balloons drop gravel ballast on his potatoes. Then the monorail comes, and an iron pylon straddles his house while bright cars rumble overhead all night like a summer thunderstorm. He can think of nothing to say except that you would hardly think it could keep going.
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Details
- First published
- 1908
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 7 h 15 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Wells, H. G. The War in the Air. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-war-in-the-air.
Wells, H. G. (2026). The war in the air. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-war-in-the-air (Original work published 1908)
Wells, H. G. The War in the Air. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-war-in-the-air.
@book{wells2026war,
author = {Wells, H. G.},
title = {The War in the Air},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-war-in-the-air},
note = {First published 1908}
}
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What is The War in the Air about?
It follows Bert Smallways, an ordinary bicycle mechanic, who is carried by a runaway balloon into the middle of a worldwide war fought with airships and flying machines, and who sees civilization begin to collapse.
When was The War in the Air written and is it a true story?
Wells wrote it in 1907, and it appeared in magazines in 1908 and as a book that year. It is fiction, a prediction of how aircraft might change war.
Who is Butteridge and why does his secret matter?
Alfred Butteridge is a loud inventor who flies a wasplike machine that can hover and turn easily. Every great power wants his secret, and Bert ends up carrying part of it by accident.
The author
H. G. Wells
1866–1946 · English science fiction novelist
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) was an English writer born in Bromley, Kent. He wrote novels, short stories and nonfiction. His novels included The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898). He died in London.
“In the air, every direction leads everywhere.”
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